supposably the Shuttle was meant to be reasonably safe that an escape system is not needed, unfortunately it was not as safe as commercial airliners. Airliners from the 707 to the 380 don't have escape systems, they were designed to safe enough. Of course if the airplane is not that safe, re-design it so it will be. There have been crashes as nothing is absolutely safe. Like ejection seats were never considered for airliners, if you survive the punchout, will you survive the environment which you parachute into? i.e. frigid Atlantic ocean, barren hot desert, etc.

AC said, "from a documentary I saw on PBS, is that the escape mechanisms are largely an afterthought meant to soothe the public and legislatures." I don't think so. Escape systems were part of the design (in 1950s, ejection seats to tractor rockets to escape towers were all being considered. Though astronauts and cosmonauts are national heros, they in 1960s were military pilots on flights like test aircraft with ejection seats.

but how many young techies know how to hack something like this,
http://www.wired.com/wp-conten...

I was thinking what do they use now. Years ago I remember fire engines and trucks had strobe light on top of cab that flashes sequences which causes traffic light to turn red on opposing traffic. In late 70s or early 80s I saw a Dodge van that was parked in Quement Electronics on Bascom Ave in San Jose (you old guys remember that store, favorite among geeks back in the days when Fry's was a grocery store). I guess this person got ahold of one of these and voila, never gets a red light. Question I always wondered if that was legal.

Fast forward to nowadays, do emergency vehicles use such a system and is it RF based?

same with me, hacking traffic lights and reminded me of Benny Hill as the professor inserting hacked tape into the control system deck. Michael Caine said to the other members of his team though professor had "interesting reading material" to not make fun of him because he is very important for the job. I saw the movie last month (previously saw it in 1970s), featured the Mini Coopers that were screamers (back in the days almost all small cars were slow), Italian constantly honking horns (most in those little Fiats). In real life they do that even when traffic isn't moving.

which we've heard for 50 years.

I did a right turn at a major intersection but stopped before I turned. When I proceeded, there was several strobe flashes. Scared the crap out of me, muzzle flashes? Heard no gun shots. Lightning? uh clear skies. Am I gonna get socked with a big fine and huge increase of insurance because camera made a mistake? So far it's been months and nothing in the mail (unless there is an outstanding FTA waiting for 10-29), but I don't have that car anymore (bought another recently). Will such strobe lights freak someone out and cause them to t-bone me? I don't travel though that intersection much but when I do there is not much of a choice.

I wonder how such cities keep running i.e. water, power, sewage, traffic (though slow), electricity, food, etc. etc. and not collapse into some kind of Somalia environment with corruption gone rampant?

I was thinking first having kids learn about finances so they learn at early age the basics instead of becoming like many adults burden with debt from misuse of credit cards and borrowing plans. But that's another topic.

Getting back to this topic, I haven't seen the movie or read the book but I looked up Enders' Game to see what reference was. It seems creepy the parallels. Perhaps my Gripe of the Month is so much value is placed on warfare but I guess that's were progress is made. i.e. computers, internet, DARPA are all war department driven. While our economy tanks because most never got basic financial education, now there's war brewing in Ukraine and Middle East I guess emphasis is raising children to deal with it.

kind of like those who sit in ATC rooms and make sure the airliners don't collide?

Perhaps by design they make the application difficult. It's tough, it's demanding, it's the hardest thing you will ever do. But if you have the perseverance, the skill to do it, then maybe you are worthy to join.

I have to cry foul on this one. $79K is lot more than minimum wage but not high considering responsibility they have (future adults are children) especially this is Silicon Valley (one million dollars is not a lot of money). Yes, they get benefits as compared to other jobs that used to have benefits like pension plans but there is a jihad to eliminate those. Others not in the profession from billionaires to working stiffs don't believe teachers should have these.

You don't know teachers. Many have to use their earnings to buy supplies because politicos are too cheap to provide much of basic stuff they used to provide. Many teachers spend a lot of time after class and at home preparing lesson plans, etc. They don't have teachers aides like back in the days.

I don't want to hear this about there's not enough money, we find plenty to spend on countries, prisons, spying on citizens, etc.

I think I've heard this before. If empire puts the squeeze on trade routes, then its own subjects are too scared to expand and explore. Someone mentioned this analogy in another forum of what's preventing space exploration (oh, I don't have time to get the details and properly word stuff). Getting back to this canal, China has money to burn so may as well put it into this canal to provide options (it is one they can control where Panama they cannot). There is also amount of ships that can pass through Panama, even if it were wider (which it will be shortly) I heard there is a "traffic jam" of ships waiting in ocean for their turn.

I can't think of any but what a reputation this country has: Hackers, Russian dash cam car crashes, a leader with Tsar ambitions. And yet they have best competition ballroom dancers (and many moved here to US).

My impression is Chinese are thinking big plans for future. Way back in late 1800s early 1900s US was thinking same thing: Panama Canal was a huge project with lots of opportunity for failure. But reaped benefits for decades after. Also Chinese have lots of cash and putting it into big projects (ok some will fail but whatever they will secure strategic advantage). Meanwhile US put lots of resources into backwards countries with not much to show for it.

I first used Justin but then later all I would get is a freeze frame with a cartoon of a dinosaur on top of image, "our monkeys are working as hard as they can to get it fixed" or something like that. So I then went to Ustream which seems to work fine except I never could get audio along with video, though I'm using the free version (maybe they don't send sound?). Livestream looks pretty good but for people to see it you have to get paid version. ParadigmDVD has nice Livestream streaming videos from dance competitions, nothing special on their end (I forget if they use PC or Mac) simply connect and use software from Livestream. They feed SDI from the cameras.